EU light bulb ban starts tomorrow

With absolutely no fanfare our even prior warning, the EU ban on light bulbs comes into force today.

From tomorrow it will be illegal for anyone to import or sell normal light bulbs, forcing consumers to buy expensive and inferior energy saving bulbs or prohibitively expensive LED bulbs instead.

The British government quango responsible for producing propaganda about energy saving bulbs, the Energy Saving Trust, claims that an energy saving bulb can save £3 per year. The claim is based on dodgy maths but even if it wasn't, is it worth spending a year sitting in half light for the price of a bunch of grapes and paying ten times as much for the light bulbs for the privilege?

Luckily for us, retailers have found a loophole so that they can still sell us proper light bulbs - the ban doesn't extend to industrial light bulbs and there is no law against selling "rough service bulbs" to the domestic market. The National Measurement Office warns that household insurance policies might not cover you for the use of the bulbs in your home but as they're exactly the same as normal household bulbs except for having stronger fittings and bulbs, it's hard to see a reason why an insurance company could claim you put your home at risk by using them and refuse to pay out if they're actually safer. It's seems to be nothing more than scaremongering by the quango responsible for enforcing the ban on proper bulbs. The supermarkets won't sell the "rough service bulbs" though, they're happy to help enforce the ban because they make more money off a £15 light bulb than a £1.50 light bulb, especially when - despite the green lobby's claims to the contrary - energy saving bulbs last no longer than a normal light bulb.

My advice is to stock up on light bulbs while you still can because that particular loophole will be closed by the green fascists pretty sharpish.

EU bans 60w light bulbs

The production and import of 60w incandescent light bulbs is banned from today by order of the EU.

The 100w bulb has been banned for a while now and many turned to the 60w bulb as an alternative to the expensive, dim energy saving bulbs that were supposed to replace the 100w bulb.  Now these have been banned and the only option once stocks of incandescent bulbs have run out is expensive mercury-filled inferior energy saving light bulbs or LED bulbs which are prohibitively expensive for most people.

Just a quick reminder of what's wrong with the EU's "environmentally friendly" energy saving bulbs:

• Expensive
  They are many times more expensive than incandescent lightbulbs, thanks in part to protectionist EU tariffs on imported energy saving bulbs to help (expensive) German manufacturer, Osram, compete with companies in the far east
• Poisonous
  They contain mercury which is highly toxic to humans and animals
• Poor light
  The energy saving "equivalent" of incandescent bulbs give out a dull, washed-out light
• Safe disposal
  You aren't supposed to throw energy saving bulbs in your ordinary rubbish bin because of the poisonous contents
• Health risks
  Energy saving bulbs can induce fits in people with photosensitive epilepsy, they can cause skin problems for people with photosensitive skin and they can cause problems for people with ME
• Dimmers
  They generally don't work with them and those that do are expensive
• Heat
  They don't emit any - don't underestimate the amount of heat an incandescent light bulb can put into a room, cutting heating bills by a tangible amount
• Less electricity?
  They use less electricity than incandescent bulbs but because they're so dim you often need to put more lights on to light the same area, wiping out the savings

Only the EU could make a candle less environmentally friendly than a table lamp!

The American company, Scentsy, has just expanded into Europe and has already fallen foul of the EU's environmental laws.

Ingredients: Mercury, Phenol,
Naphthalene & Styrene

Scentsy make child-friendly candles that use the heat generated by a light bulb to melt a special wax of their own devising rather than a wick and flame.  It's a massive business in the US and they've just expanded into Europe with a distribution centre in Poland and a fledgling direct sales network in Germany and the UK.

But they can't sell their American "burners" in Europe because of EU environmental laws which ban the use of the incandescent bulbs that are required to melt the candle wax.  Instead, they have to use a heating element to reproduce the heat produced by the bulb and then add LED lights to reproduce the light produced by the bulb - two separate parts to do the work of one bulb using more resources to produce and more electricity to run (heating elements are, by their very nature, electrically inefficient).

Only the EU could make a candle less environmentally friendly than a table lamp!

Shameless plug: Mrs Sane is one of the UK's first Scentsy consultants

EU admits energy saving bulbs are inferior one day before ban

The European Empire has admitted, just one day before the ban on proper light bulbs comes into force, that energy saving bulb manufacturers are "exaggerating" their claims about equivalence.

The British government, its Energy Saving Trust quango, the European Empire, bulb manufacturers and environmental extremists have been telling us that the energy saving bulbs will save us money. They usually quote the magic figure of £37 per year invented by the British government's Energy Saving Trust quango based on replacing a 60W incandescent bulb with an 15W energy saving bulb and a 100W incandescent bulb with a 20W energy saving bulb.

The Daily Telegraph has today published the results of its own tests on energy saving bulbs which found that an 11W energy saving bulb which claims to be equivalent to a 60W incandescent bulb, even after a 10 minute warm-up period, produced only 58% of the light given off by the incandescent bulb. It would take a 20W energy saving bulb - almost double the power consumption - to get the same amount of light from an energy saving bulb as you get from a 60W incandescent bulb which will pretty much wipe out any supposed cost saving from replacing your bulbs.

This won't exactly be news to anyone who has experienced the joys of blundering around in half light after changing their proper bulbs to energy saving bulbs but it shows how fundamentally dishonest the European Empire, British government and green lobby is. The European Empire has only today - one day before proper light bulbs are banned - admitted that the claims of equivalence are false, that the energy saving potential from replacing bulbs is false and that the cost savings are a big fat lie. One day before the ban, too late to do anything about it.

EU ban on light bulbs starts in 10 days

An EU ban on 100 watt light bulbs and all frosted light bulbs comes into force on the 1st of September.

There has been no publicity, presumably to stop consumers from buying stocks of proper light bulbs before they're banned like they have in Germany where sales of proper light bulbs are up 34% this year.

The Department for the Environment says that there are lots of misconceptions about energy saving light bulbs such as them being dim, taking an age to warm up, giving off a poor quality light and not working with dimmer switches. But they are dim, they do take an age to warm up, they do give off an inferior quality of light and an energy saving bulb that works with a dimmer switch will set you back in excess of £15.

But it's not just the fact that the European Empire is forcing us to buy expensive, inferior light bulbs that will irritate people - the reason why they're so expensive is that the European Empire imposes tariffs on imported energy saving bulbs to stop foreign manufacturers undercutting the German bulb manufacturer, Osram, whilst it slowly turns over its factories to energy saving bulb production.

Let the panic buying commence!